Art and Craft Apps for the Artist in Your Child

Does crafting bring out the best in your little girl? Or does your youngster struggle with art projects at school? These useful apps will help hone your little one’s artistic skills

By
Sahana Charan

Art and craft activities such as drawing, painting, paper crafts, sculpting and so on allow children to channel their creative energy and to open up their minds. Doing various things with the hands has its benefits and gives young people a chance to explore their imagination.

The benefits of using art and crafts include –

1.Hand-eye co-ordination

2.Build fine motor skills

3.Expand their imaginative thinking

4.Boost confidence

When children have artistic or craft-based projects in school, parents may be in a dilemma about how best to help their little ones make the best of their creative skills. Here are five amazing applications that give a creativity boost --

1. ColorMinis Kids

Toddlers and preschoolers love putting colour to paper, while they also enjoy filling bland pictures with bright and beautiful hues. This particular app is perfect for children who love to play with colour. It is like colouring and designing 3D images instead of using paper. Kids can choose from anime figures, animals, robots, buildings and many more. The app allows them to create their own colour combinations and palettes, and what’s more your little one can even create pictures of her creation and share it with others. So go ahead and let your child create a splash.

Free on Android

Ages: 3 years and up

2. Kids Craft Ideas

Craft making is a great hobby for children to practise when you want to keep them away from the tablet or television, and instead, want them to use their imagination to create something meaningful. This app lets your youngster do that and much more. Moreover, this particular app will also come to your rescue on the days that your child has to put up a craft project in school and you are at your wit’s end as to how to help him. This particular app is simple to use as it has different types of craft ideas which your child can take inspiration from. For examples craft based on animal themes such as fish, bunny etc; occasions such as Christmas, Halloween; seasons like summer, spring and so on. These are all unique DIY crafts, which anyone can do.

Free on Android

Ages: 5 years and up

3. Night Zookeeper Teleporting Torch

This is a popular game application that has received rave reviews from users and critics alike. It inspires children to create their own artistic masterpieces and even write stories. Night Zookeeper Teleporting Torch delivers free daily drawing activities to your iPad. It is like an activity book that never finishes, so every day your child gets to create something new. So there are giraffes, monsters and elephants giving inspiration while your little one draws, paints and write a story for the drawing. It also has a smart feature to store all your child’s artwork in one place.

Free on iOS devices.

Ages: 4 years and up

4. TutoTod – Easy Craft for Kids

This is a really useful educational app for preschool and school going children that teaches them to make easy crafts in simple and understandable manner. This will be especially useful for school projects as it has 140 tutorials to create crafts using very few supplies, but still, make it amazing. The supplies that are mostly used are – paper, markers, scissors, toilet paper roll, twine and glue. This app can also be a great aid for play activities at home with family and at school. Apart from helping in skull development, TutoTod also encourages creative thinking. Children can even make their own toys and then take pictures of their work and share with friends.

Ages: 3 - 7 years

Paid on iOS devices.

5. Build a Ship with Kate and Harry

This is a fun, construction-based, interactive toy app, that encourages the little ones to experiment with various designs and colours. The goal is to build a ship using various tools and this was children get a chance to jog their imagination. Perfect for toddlers and preschoolers, there are over 3000 ship design combinations available and all of them are possible to finish in five easy steps. The characters of Kate and Harry help in the ship-building. The best part of the app is that it mostly uses sounds and gestures to prompt the kids.